Why So Serious? How to Take Your Creativity Seriously Without Killing the Joy

Ya'll know that iconic scene from the Dark Knight where the Joker maniacally asks "Why so serious?" (maybe you don't but I've placed a gif for visual reference lol).

I know for me, a huge part of my journey in life and particularly in my creativity is learning to be more playful.

A mentor once told me something that has always stuck with me and I often repeat to myself (and share with others): "things can be important but they don't need to be significant."

What does that mean?

It means that we can take things seriously but we don't need to add unnecessary levels of importance - especially if that importance takes us away from the true intention / meaning / lesson.

For creativity and our creative passions / hobbies / projects, it could mean that we care about something, we want to give it our all or our best and we also don't need to make it *mean* something.

Do you get what I'm saying?

We can care about it deeply and we can also be playful.

When we add too much significance, we can lose the joy and we can lose the expansiveness and possibility of what something can or wants to become.

Maybe it means that we get lost in the details and lose sight of the whole picture or we stop finding joy in what we are doing or we make it mean something about our identity.

To be clear, this doesn't mean that we have an inappropriate level of not taking something seriously that requires our attention (and seriousness), it just means that we don't add additional story to it.

So this week I am asking myself:

• Where do I make things more significant than they need to be?

• Where does that hurt my creative endeavors?

• How can I bring more playfulness to my creativity (and life!) even when something might be serious?

• What would open up if I took things seriously *AND* it was playful?

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